Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld spoke toS R Shivshanka, CEO, ACG Films and Foils to know more about the issues, challenges and the latest developments in pharma packaging. Edited excerpts : Pharma packaging solutions
Trends
Globally the trend of pharma packaging is moving more and more towards compliance packaging, towards high quality barriers and towards solutions which make it easier for the patient to use. In India the technologies are not moving at the pace at which it is moving globally but the expectation of customers is more and more towards higher quality of barriers, better performance of machines and a lower cost per blister.
ACG Films and Foils
Journey so far
ACG Films and Foils started in 1993 when there was great need felt for barrier packaging using special barriers. We were pioneers in introducing this product in the country in 1993 with the latest technology coming in from Europe. Over the years we have progressed by introducing higher and higher quality of barrier material and our latest addition has been the introduction of aluminium cold form foil and allied products which gives us the strength of a complete range of barrier products for pharmaceutical industry.
ACG Films and Foils
As differentiator
We started investing heavily into getting better technologies as we got into a better facility in 2009. We also decided that we need to increase our capacities both in the manufacture of PVCs and in the manufacturing of PVDC coated films. We were subsequently awarded a global converter ship by Honeywell for laminating their special high barrier products called Aclar to PVC which has given a big boost to the pharmaceutical industry in India and the neighboring regions.
As I mentioned earlier, we now are able to offer the widest range of barrier films with PVC on one side and aluminium foil on the other because aluminium is probably one of the best barriers that pharmaceutical product can have in terms of oxygen and moisture.
We offer PVC which is the mono film , we also manufacture different grades of PVDC coated films which is normally depicted by the amount of grammage we have on the PVC so we manufacture different thicknesses which are available for the customer for his choosing. We also manufacture the ultra-high barrier products with Aclar from Honeywell and something called Super bee from a company called Solvay. In addition to this we recently introduced the cold form foil in aluminium with different variants of that to be able to serve the pharmaceutical customers in a complete way.
In the aluminium range of products we have close to about 20 or 30 different variants which helps the customers choose based on their specific application. We also manufacture the lidding foil which is used for the covering of the pharmaceutical blister and in this we have different variants like the peel push or the peel able foils. In addition to this we have the tropical blisters, the child resistant and senior friendly foils which are very unique in terms of their requirement especially in the markets of the United States and in Europe.
In India we have a sizeable market share where we have more than about 30% of the market. Globally we are not yet very strong in certain markets developed markets like the US and Europe but in most of the other markets we have anywhere between 8 to 12% market share.
This business is becoming more and more challenging in terms of the cost of the product because it is ultimately passed on to the end user. There’s constantly a pressure from more and more countries and more and more pharmaceutical companies to reduce costs. So whats most important is that the total cost of ownership when we supply our product to our pharmaceutical customer needs to come down to further and further. This puts pressure on us in improving operational efficiencies, in improving quality, in improving the performance at the customer’s end on their machine. In addition to this what is also happening is compliance packaging and ensuring that when we comply with regulatory aspects is going to be more and more critical because demands from end customers are constantly increasing. The other aspect which is also a challenge for the pharmaceutical industry and very difficult to estimate is that counterfeiting is becoming highly prevalent especially in web based marketing solutions and most of these products seem to be originating somewhere in Asia. So providing anti-counterfeiting solutions to the pharmaceutical industry is something that is high on our agenda and we are developing both overt and covert solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.
ACG is constantly partnering with its customers and we are as part of our endeavor to satisfy them increasing our capacities in the quoted products and also expanding globally in different geographies. We have recently added a facility in Brazil and are keen in acquiring facilities around Europe and the US.
We are unique in the sense that we will be able to offer just in time supplies through a global footprint of warehouses and manufacturing facilities and we also would be able to offer optimal solutions with the widest range of barrier products.
As part of our unique value proposition we desire to have a global footprint and towards this we have added a manufacturing facility in Brazil and have warehouses in different parts of the world. We are also planning to have manufacturing locations in Europe and the United States.